Patent Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Swiss company SmartData sues Apple over Apple TV, iPhone

by Chris Rawson (Feb 9th, 2012)

Another company you've probably never heard of before today is after a slice of Apple's pie. This time it's Swiss company SmartData, who claims Apple is willfully infringing its patent on a "modular computer" with the Apple TV, iPhone, and Remote app. As noted by Electronista, SmartData doesn't ...

Court says reworked Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1N can be sold in Germany

by Mike Schramm (Feb 9th, 2012)

Apple's been going back and forth in German courts over the Samsung Galaxy Tab, suggesting it "borrows" a few too many features from the iPad, but the latest ruling has fallen in Samsung's favor. A German court has now decided that the Galaxy Tab has "clear differences" from the iPad, and thus can ...

Apple shows interest in European patent laws

by Mike Schramm (Feb 9th, 2012)

Apple has delivered a letter to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute asking for basic principles for that region of the world on patents and their licensing, according to the Wall Street Journal. The letter asks for consistency across the board in how patents are owned and shared, ...

Motorola wants 2.25 percent of Apple sales to license patents

by Chris Rawson (Feb 4th, 2012)

The ongoing patent spat between Motorola and Apple has reached an interesting crossroads. Just recently a German court granted an injunction against sales of many of Apple's 3G-bearing products, including older model iPhones and the iPad. That injunction held for less than a day, however, pending ...

Motorola after an injunction against iPhone 4S, iCloud

by Chris Rawson (Jan 25th, 2012)

Motorola has filed a new patent suit against Apple and now seeks an injunction against both the iPhone 4S and iCloud. FOSS Patents notes that the terms of Google's proposed acquisition of Motorola stipulate that Motorola can't initiate new intellectual property suits without Google's approval; ...

Apple seeks to broaden HTC import ban

by Chris Rawson (Jan 25th, 2012)

While Apple won a partial victory in December in its patent battles with rival smartphone maker HTC, the scope of the ruling was both fairly tame and narrow enough for HTC to develop a workaround a mere two days after the ruling. According to FOSS Patents, Apple filed an appeal against the ...

Apple cleared on one of seven Samsung patents in Germany

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jan 20th, 2012)

A German judge presiding over one of Samsung's seven patent infringement cases against Apple ruled in favor of the Cupertino company. The patent infringement case involves one of several 3G/UMTS patents held by the Korean manufacturer. The ruling did not give the reason why the judge rejected ...

Apple granted 22 patents including trackpads, iPhone circuit boards and more

by Chris Rawson (Jan 18th, 2012)

Every once in a while Apple gets granted a big chunk of patents all at once, and this is one of those times. In addition to an Apple TV patent we've described in its own post, Apple's been granted over 20 other patents ranging from advanced trackpads to iPhone circuit board designs and ...

Steve Jobs awarded patent for episodic TV on the Apple TV

by Chris Rawson (Jan 18th, 2012)

According to Patently Apple, Apple has been awarded a patent that it filed over five years ago related to sorting episodic TV content on the Apple TV. Steve Jobs himself is among the people credited with the patent, which on the surface merely appears to describe the sorting features already ...

Samsung to release newly-designed Galaxy Tab 7.0N in Germany

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jan 13th, 2012)

Samsung may be bold when it comes to its Apple fanboy commercials, but the handset maker is starting to back down on some of its products. According to BestBoyz.de, the tablet manufacturer is releasing a newly-designed Galaxy Tab 7.0N in Germany that does not infringe on Apple's patents or ...

Spanish firm NT-K beats Apple in court, files extortion charges

by Chris Rawson (Jan 11th, 2012)

Two months ago, Spanish tablet maker Nuevas Tecnologías y Energías Catalá (or NT-K for short) won a design infringement lawsuit Apple filed against it a year earlier. Now, NT-K is on the offensive and seeking damages from Apple; the company has filed extortion charges ...

Italian court denies initial iPhone 4S ban

by Chris Rawson (Jan 5th, 2012)

Samsung has lost another battle in its ongoing patent war with Apple. Its request to have iPhone 4S sales banned in Italy has been denied by the Italian courts. This comes barely a month after France similarly denied Samsung's request for a sales injunction against the iPhone 4S. Samsung had ...

iOS developers still battling Lodsys

by Chris Rawson (Dec 30th, 2011)

We haven't heard much from the legal battles between patent troll Lodsys and the developer community, but unfortunately that doesn't mean Lodsys has shriveled up and vanished. Ars Technica has interviewed iOS developer Mike Lee, who founded the Appsterdam Legal Defense Team to fight Lodsys's ...

Apple wins a core iPhone multitouch patent

by Megan Lavey-Heaton (Dec 28th, 2011)

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has awarded Apple the patent to one of the core iPhone multitouch functions. Patently Apple reports that the patent involves the oscillator signal and circuit, which are key to sensing when someone is touching the iPhone display. This comes on the heels of ...

Daily Update for December 21, 2011

by Steven Sande (Dec 21st, 2011)

It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player ...